Grannies groove into Eurovision

A group of grooving grannies have won the competition to represent Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest this year. They beat 24 other acts with a song in Udmurt, a minority language spoken by just 325,000 people. They wear traditional Russian outfits and headscarves on stage.

The group, Buranovo Babushki, come from a small village, 1,000 kms east of Moscow where they are rehearsing their competition song, which they wrote themselves.

Their artistic director, Olga Tuktaryova, said: “We didn’t know what music to use, we just thought about our own lives and realised this would be easier to convey to people. So we sing about our children coming home, about waiting for them, waiting for guests. We light the stove, we make cakes and we dance together.”